Chicago-based Bess Lee checks her watch at the Amtrak station
in Ann Arbor. Railroad and shipworker employees are one group that
Grimes study mentions as making a good wage without a four-year
college degree.

By Bernie DeGroat
News and Information Services

Contrary to popular belief, a bachelor's degree is not always
needed to land a well-paying job, according to a U-M study.

"Most people believe that the only reliable path to good-paying
work is by obtaining a four-year college degree or more," says
researcher Donald Grimes of the Institute of Labor and Industrial
Relations.

"This belief, however, contradicts reports from employers in
almost every industry that they cannot fill good-paying jobs that do
not require a bachelor's degree," adds Grimes' colleague Lou Glazer
of Michigan Future Inc.

In their study of 158 occupations in the Great Lakes region
(Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin), Grimes and Glazer
found that among 54 job fields with median annual earnings of at
least $33,000 (about 10 percent above the typical yearly income in
the Great Lakes region), 23 were occupations that required no
four-year college degree.

The study shows that typical annual earnings for these jobs are
comparable to the median incomes in such "bachelor's
degree-dominated" occupations as scientists, insurance agents,
financial managers, computer programmers, registered nurses,
accountants, counselors and teachers.

While employment prospects in each of the well-paying,
"non-college" occupations is generally good, Grimes says that most
require some form of special training.

"The common characteristic of the 23 `good-paying' occupations
that do not require a bachelor's degree is the need for
skills-training beyond high school," he says. "These occupations
require advanced skills learned on the job, in apprenticeship
programs or at community colleges and other technical training
schools."

Grimes also says that younger workers (ages 20-34) are just as
likely as older workers to be employed in well-paying occupations
that do not require a four-year college degree. Further, more than a
third of younger workers employed full-time in such "non-college"
occupations as sales, precision production, transportation and
materials moving, and technician jobs, earn more than $30,000
annually.

Other occupations that do not require a bachelor's degree but have
"moderate" pay scales (annual median incomes between $27,000 and
$33,000) include real estate sales, machinists, truck drivers,
production coordinators, heating and air conditioning specialists,
and stock and inventory clerks, the study found.